NEWSBRIEFS & COMMENTS

IndianExpress reported that Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Iran wants guarantees that it won’t face UN sanctions before it is prepared to restart negotiations over its nuclear program.

Reuters reported that Russia ruled out any discussion for now of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
Alan note: A Russian team was in Iran last week to finalize the details of the Bushehr nuclear plant Russin is determined to build for Iran.

The West is being low-key in its response to Iran.

The New York Times reported that the formal reaction from the United States and its European allies to Iran’s refusal to suspend uranium enrichment has been decidedly low-key. It is all part of a public relations strategy.

Dow Jones Newswires reported that French President Jacques Chirac said Iran's response to an international package of incentives meant to persuade it to return to negotiations over its nuclear program was a "little ambiguous."

The Iranian negotiators are playing a poor hand well.

The Financial Times reported that whatever else might be said about the Iranian regime, it has played its diplomatic hand adroitly and plays by its own rules.

Amir Taheri, Asharq Alawsat warned that Ahmadinejad is convinced that his strategy of "pre-emptive move" has succeeded and that with the US entering a period of confusion as the Bush presidency draws to its close, the Islamic Republic can and must establish itself as the regional superpower.

The Islamic Republic has found a new job for Khatami.

The New York Sun in an editorial said that an internal fight is under way at the highest levels of the Bush administration over whether to issue a visa to the former president of Iran, Mohammed Khatami, to visit Washington. But argued that his purpose for the visit is to enlist the usual useful idiots to defend his nation's right to nuclear power.

Alan Note: apparently Khatami had already been spirited into the country three days before all this "old news" broke in the Main Stream Media.

Adnkronos International

reported that Khatami, the former President of the Islamic Republic, said: "It is Iran's right to possess nuclear technology, this is not up for debate and the world has to trust us when we say our nuclear program is only intended for peaceful purposes."

Alan Note: like Bill Clinton's "depends on what is...is", Iran's "peaceful" use is linked to shelling the Kurds in the North part of Iran and Iraq, on carrying out their stated aim to wipe Israel off the face of the map, of arming terrorists - with "peaceful means" in the future, etc., etc.

The dissidents: a sad update.

Rooz Online reported that 98 Court summons, temporary detention, disregard for prisoner conditions, closure of newspapers, heavy sentences, forced confessions are only some of the developments in Iran that speak of more human rights violations.

Alan Note: when the "Iranian" Basiji forces, mostly Arab and Sunni mercenaries recently armed with some $250 Million in new equipment and weaponry, with powers of arrest and detetnion and whose ONLY duty is the suppression of activity against the regime, specially in the streets, factories and universities, why would we be astonished at more of the same old same-o!

Rooz Online reported that as the news of Akbar Mohammadi’s death, and the condition of other political prisoners such as Ahmad Batebi, Ali Akbar Mousavi Khoeini, and Ramin Jahanbegloo, among many others, has created a wave of concern. The condition of other political prisoners in the provinces and smaller towns is as bad.

With the refurbishing of the Basijis, suppression has widened down to ever smaller and smaller towns, villages and communities as unpaid wages (often for as long as nine months to a year) and other social ills create seething unrest, which does not have the energy to rise to the surface except in small, occasional bubbles. And is met with extreme torture and death as reprisal for actions we take for granted in the West. None of us would dare to be activists if our local conditions were one tenth of what Iranians face from the regime and the Basijis.

Iran Press News reported that electric company workers of the city of Rasht will take their protest to Tehran.

More arrests, more torture, more indiscriminate reprisals against family and friends and nothing gained except pain and even greater suffering than what the protesters have today.

Why Turkey must not be part of an international force in Lebanon.

The Daily Star reported that with quiet prevailing in Lebanon, the question now is will Turkey take part in the international force to assist in the ceasefire. But warned that a few years ago, Turkish peacekeepers to Lebanon would have been a great idea, today, it is a dangerous one.

Alan Note: with the anti-Jewish and Israeli midsets throughout the UN and their total relutctance and self-admitted inability to disarm the Hezbollah, does it make a difference who is in the "peace keeping forces"?

Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post argued that the conventional wisdom about President Bush is that the cowboy has been retired. Multilateralism is back. Diplomacy is King. American diplomacy on Iran has, up until now, been defensible.

Alan Note: and Iran will have its nuclear bomb while the Democrat party "wins" its war of character assassination against Bush and then faces the REAL threat of a nuclear Iran when it is far too late. And we all die along with the Nancy Pelosis, the John Murthas, the Edward Kennedys and the John Kerrys. And others like Leach and his ilk.

Rooz Online reported that Kayhan, the leading newspaper of Iran’s fundamentalists published a story claiming Islamic texts prophesied Nasrollah's battle with Israel that has been exposed as fraudulent.

Iran Press News reported that Kayhan, the regime newspaper claimed that following the news of the victory of Hezbollah against the Zionist regime that parents are rushing to the registration offices to change their children’s names to Nasrollah.

Alan Note: forgive them NOT even if they - like the Iranians who the dethroned the Shah and fell into their current deep well of darkness - know not what they do.

Iran Press News reported with the implementation of harsh rules for issuing proper permits for translating, promoting and distribution of books, publishers in Iran have begun to go bankrupt; many writers and translators with considerable backgrounds have also abandoned their craft.

Alan Note: statistics show that the average time an Iranian inside the Islamic regime spends reading a book is about three minutes per year. I'm not sure if this includes Kiran studies.

Iran Press News reported that after months of speculation and fluctuating news, Sheibani, the managing director of the Central Bank, will finally step down.

Ha'aretz reported that the Israel Defense Forces has appointed Israel Air Force Commander Major General Elyezer Shkedy as the IDF's "campaign manager" against Iran.

Dow Jones Newswires reported that lawyers for Romanian oil services company GSP, are on their way to Tehran to negotiate a release of an oil rig that has been taken over by Iranians.

Alan Note: the rig which was taken over by illegal force has been returned to Romanian control.

Iran Daily reported that Iran will now require identification cards be issued for Iranian websites and individuals will be responsible for what they publish on their websites.

More again of the same old same-o repression of the false Islamic regime in Iran.